Every design student (actually every young designer) should read Alina Tugend’s new book, Better by Mistake: The Unexpected Benefits of Being Wrong.In an excerpt published in today’s New York Times, Tugend interviews Jeff Szymanski, executive director of the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation in Boston.Dr. Szymanski says

[A perfectionist's] need for perfection can also sabotage their own success.They do not turn in projects on time because they’re not yet perfect.They can’t prioritize what needs to be done quickly and what needs more time to complete.They want to rigidly follow rules to get things “right,” and this often means they’re terribly uncreative, because creativity involves making mistakes.

This last observation should be most troubling to designers that want to be creative while at the same time fear mistakes. It is difficult to accomplish both at the same time. Remove the fear of mistakes and enjoy a newfound freedom to be creative.